HBO cancels The Time Traveler’s Wife

The Time Traveler’s Wife is a new HBO show based on the science fiction book of the same name by Audrey Niffenegger. Rose Leslie (Ygritte on Game of Thrones) and Theo James star as Clare Abshire and Henry DeTamble, a couple with an unusual problem: he regularly gets unstuck in time, which means he just kind of vanishes from their marriage at inopportune moments to travel unexpectedly into the past or future, he knows not where or why. Marriage is hard enough when one partner travels a lot for work, so this is ridiculous.

Anyway, the show got a negative response from critics, although audiences were more kind. They must not have been watching in great numbers though, because TV Line reports that HBO has cancelled the series.

“Though HBO will not be moving forward with the second season of The Time Traveler’s Wife, it was our privilege to partner with master storytellers Steven Moffat and David Nutter,” HBO said in a statement. “We are so grateful for their passion, hard work and care for adapting this beloved book. We also thank Theo and Rose, and the rest of our brilliant cast for their heartfelt performances, which completely captivated audiences.”

The Time Traveler’s Wife Episode 7 will never happen

I’ll be honest: I did not realize that The Time Traveler’s Wife was an ongoing series and not just a one-and-done adaptation of the book. I mean, it’s not a short book — it’s 546 pages — but A Game of Thrones is almost twice as long and HBO managed to adapt that in one season of TV. Plus there was a 2009 movie version of The Time Traveler’s Wife that told the whole story in one sitting, although it wasn’t well-received. Whose bright idea was it to stretch this out?

Probably showrunner Steven Moffat, who’s probably most famous for working on Doctor Who. “I had a plan about how many seasons we’d do — not telling you! — and where each one would end and how far you’d take it,” Moffat said a while back. “There is enough juice in the book for more than just one [season]. But at the same time, I would still call it a limited series because it can’t go on forever. It has to stop. We already know a fair bit about how it ends. By Episode 3, you know he’s going to get shot in a forest. You know he’s going to lose his feet at some point. So it’s a story of destiny, I guess. The end is built into the beginning.”

Oh good, so the ending is already sorta there; no second season needed.

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